Hearing impaired in the workplace

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spydergirl95

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:deal: Hi, i'm doing a paper and speech on communicating with hearing impaired clients and co-workers. I myself am not hearing impaired, but would really appreciate some inside information on any problems that have been encountered in the workplace and how they have been overcome. Any and all help would be highly appreciated!!! THANK YOU!!!!

my email is spydergirl95@comcast.net
please email me or respond here
 
Deaf... Can't you say the word, "Deaf"?

I see the label "hearing-impaired" as a negative.

I have worked at a food store for 4 years and 3 months. When I first started working, I was paid $4.25 an hour. When I quit from the grocery store due to discrimination and someone vandalizing my locker, I was making $4.75 an hour. I have this solid mindset that hearing people in general only use Deaf employees to do the menial jobs like janitorial work or just make the Deaf employees stay at one position for a very long time with little or no pay raise. Deaf people have feelings, too. And there are really smart Deaf people who can do much more working in the office than to be janitors scraping pubes off the urinals!
 
Agree with Deaf258...
I view "hearing impaired" as a negative, too.. and
unfortunately hearing world view our favorite word "deaf"
as a negative

Many Deaf people generally are good hard workers
and they usually were quite under-utilized How true
about them being in the same position too long with
very little raises. Sigh. That's discrimination.
Very Sad. It happened to me before even I was one
of the most productive employees I got only
ten (10) cents raise per hour for a few years
so thats one of the reasons I no longer feel motiviated
anymore afterall. It made more difficult for me
to trust any employers in the future.
 
What if the person isnt completely deaf? Are they still treated the same way??? I wasnt trying to be negative, the term hearing impaired is used in the actual topic that my professor assigned. :o
 
spydergirl95 said:
What if the person isnt completely deaf? Are they still treated the same way??? I wasnt trying to be negative, the term hearing impaired is used in the actual topic that my professor assigned. :o
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I wore hearing aids everyday to that awful store. I can speak very well that most hearing people assume I am an foreign exchange student. Being hard of hearing is HARDER than being either Deaf or Hearing. When I speak, the hearing people automatically think I can hear everything they say. After I gave up my hearing aids and started learning ASL so I could have an interpreter at my appointments and classes, I still get attitude from the hearing coworkers whenever I asked for an interpreter since they already know I can speak well. When I try to work with Deaf people and they find out I can speak well, I get shit from them that I am "think-Hearie". That's why I speak less and less, signing more and more. I would rather work with Deaf employees than hearing ones because of the communication and the Deaf people's willingness to try communicate more. I rarely meet any hearing people on the job who try to go the extra mile to make sure I understood on the job.

Tell the professor he is politically incorrect for using the "hearing-impaired" term.
 
Deaf258 said:
I wore hearing aids everyday to that awful store. I can speak very well that most hearing people assume I am an foreign exchange student. Being hard of hearing is HARDER than being either Deaf or Hearing. When I speak, the hearing people automatically think I can hear everything they say. After I gave up my hearing aids and started learning ASL so I could have an interpreter at my appointments and classes, I still get attitude from the hearing coworkers whenever I asked for an interpreter since they already know I can speak well. When I try to work with Deaf people and they find out I can speak well, I get shit from them that I am "think-Hearie". That's why I speak less and less, signing more and more. I would rather work with Deaf employees than hearing ones because of the communication and the Deaf people's willingness to try communicate more. I rarely meet any hearing people on the job who try to go the extra mile to make sure I understood on the job.

Tell the professor he is politically incorrect for using the "hearing-impaired" term.
Click to expand...
My cousin is a HoH person and she shared her frustrations with me time to time so I can totally understand what you went through (or still going through these craps).
 
If you want to know how all the problems were solved.. they never got solved. It's always at the expense of me losing the job by being fired or forced to quit.

If the hearing coworkers try to learn sign language, that helps. Other than that, discriminition is still here to stay despite the fact we have the ADA law.
 
spydergirl95 said:
:deal: Hi, i'm doing a paper and speech on communicating with hearing impaired clients and co-workers. I myself am not hearing impaired, but would really appreciate some inside information on any problems that have been encountered in the workplace and how they have been overcome. Any and all help would be highly appreciated!!! THANK YOU!!!!

my email is spydergirl95@comcast.net
please email me or respond here
Click to expand...
I realize that I don't have any 'unique' problem... Most of these are common. Like attitude or tardy problem. Well, I will have to ponder on these tonight and tomorrow morning to see if I actually have 'unique' problem to share with you or not.

However communication issue is very common among between deafies and hearies. I used to work with one teacher who seem couldn't read my ASL that well. So she often misunderstood what I tried to say. I decided to make this easier for both of us by slowing down my signing speed and more clearer. It appeared that it solved our communication problem.
 
Tell the professor he is politically incorrect for using the "hearing-impaired" term.
Click to expand...
That was going to be my suggestion! A lot of hearing people don't know that the term hearing impaired isn't well liked among dhh (deaf and hard of hearing) people.
 
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